Join MuniGov

MuniGov Estate Strategic Plan 2012-2013

The MuniGov Estate in MOSES promotes and supports the use of virtual environments within local government agencies by offering information, training, resources, and guidance regarding the use of virtual world technology in local government.

Since launching GovGrid many months ago, our MuniGov group has been slowly working on building it into a resource for government. One of our primary goals has been creating content that can freely be shared. We've always felt having a library of 3D content would make it easier for an agency to create a virtual build or space. And over the last few months, we've been able to slowly release some content under a Creative Commons license for this purpose. As our builds develop, we will continue to create and release into the community components of our own virtual builds.

Below is a quick tutorial describing how you can create eyes for your avatar in OpenSim. This tutorial assumes you know how to upload image files using a viewer for OpenSim, and it uses the Hippo Viewer :

Having found out this week that the lilypad arrangement that had been offered for free in some Opensim world was actually stolen from a creator in Second Life, I had removed the stolen content from GovGrid. But I had hoped to have some type of lilypad arrangement in the water near the entry point of the GovGrid sim. I also noticed others had picked up the offending arrangement so figured this was an object that needed a replacement. So today I created an original lilypad/flower/reed arrangement. It definitely is not as nice as the one that had been made in Second Life.

Last week a few new developments have created the opportunity for people to visit 3D immersive spaces without having to sign up for a special account for one of the solutions or download special software for the other.

Tipodean released the ability to create a browser-based experience and gave people the ability to embed grid access on a website. Here is the page on our site where you can enter our main welcome area if you already have an account:

Back when MuniGov made the decision to look outside the world of Second Life for a virtual site for the group, there were not many options. Because our group is focused on exploring and offering information about new technology, we made a decision to try setting up our own grid. This allowed us to have our own meeting space and gave our members the opportunity to set up their own sim or grid in a government-based environment. However, one of the concerns expressed by members was that we were not publicly owned.